Hi,

I have been living and working in Germany for over 2 years now. I may return to India in a few months. I want to find out the rules and charges for relocating household goods.
1) I have a TV and a music system that i want to carry back with me. If i ship this with an international shipping company, will there be any customs charges that i need to pay? Any idea how much? Both items are used and over a year old.
2) For transporting furniture: Must the furniture be used atleast 6 months or more to be relocated free of customs duty?(I heard something like this but not sure if it's true)
3) Any recommendations on relocation companies that offer the best prices? Somewhere on this website, someone mentioned that the rate is around EUR 2.5 per Kg. So far, I have requested for quotations from 2-3 companies but the overall price offered by all of them is between EUR 3500-4000. The total weight of all my stuff shouldn't be more than 300 Kg.

u shud use your common sense to check the prices and cost of transportation. In india you do have exemption, but not sure after how many years abroad. Check that on the web. Secondly if you go by the cost of 3000 to 4000, dear freind this turns to be 2 lakhs in india, is your stuff worth atleast that.
my best bet sell it unless your music system is something like Bose which cost the same everywhere.

Yes. I have a 32" Sony HD Ready TV and a BOSE Home theatre system. So naturally(by common sense), I am choosing to leave other stuff and "considering" to take this.

The reason I asked on this website was because some people mentioned a lower price and I was hoping to get some contact details of movement companies offering a better price.

Also, I couldn't find links on the site which mention about how old the furniture should be to get exempted from duty.

Therefore, my dear friend, if you have some useful information to provide like contact numbers/links etc, please provide that.

Hi,

Hope this link would give you some details:
http://www.murthy.com/resource/iamove.html

regards,
Peacy

Thanks a lot Peacy. The link seems to have a lot of useful information.

Hi,

try this:
Europlus Transportlogistics & Services
Norsk-Data-Strasse 1
61352 Bad Homburg

Tel.: (+49) (0) 6172-483210
FAX: (+49) (0) 6172-483105


for 9 cubic meter, it cost not more than 2000 euro. I guess for this volume, you can ship everything you have.

Try out with Emirates cargo. They are very good and offer good rates. The lsat time I heard was they charge about EUR2.5 per KG.

Regards
Josh

Schenker.com is expanding in India in a big way.

They may offer good rates.Shipping the furniture may be cheaper.

Hello whatnext,

According to http://www.murthy.com/resource/iamove.html, you need to pay customs tax for your TV and Music system as mentioned in Annex I and II. I hope you noticed that.

Regards,
Rakhi

Thanks for the updates, everyone.

For anyone else who is interested in this matter, I also found the following website of Indian govt. :
http://www.cbec.gov.in/travellers.htm

The relevant section:
DUTY FREE ALLOWANCES AND ENTITLEMENTS FOR PERSONS TRANSFERRING RESIDENCE